Santa Maria in Provenzano, Siena

Santa Maria in Provenzano, or the Insigne Collegiata di Santa Maria in Provenzano, is a late-Renaissance-Baroque style, Roman Catholic, collegiate church in Piazza Provenzano Salvani, in the Terza Camollia, just northeast of the basilica of San Francesco, in the city of Siena, region of Tuscany, Italy. This Marian shrine was built around a 14th-century terracotta icon of the Madonna, that had performed miracles. The Palio of Siena takes place on the day of veneration of this Marian devotion.

Church and dome.

History

The church was consecrated on October 16, 1611 by the archbishop Camillo Borghesi. The translation of the image, which originally was in an aedicule on wall next to a house into the church on this day was painted by Taddeo Gregori, the painting is presently in the Sacristy of the Collegiata.^[1] The procession included the widowed former grand-duchess Cristina of Lorraine and the reigning Grand-Duchess Maria Maddalena d'Austria

A number of omens and events had fortified the faith in the power of the 14th-century icon. The rambling prophecies of Brandano, il pazzo di Cristo (the madman of Christ), who just before 1555 decreed that: Siena, I see your evils and cannot heal you, because God is too angry with you, Siena! ... Run the Signoria through the sieve, or it will go into the brothel! Siena! ... Send your daughters barefoot to do penance in Provenzano, because a great drowning flood nears... Senesi! Your well-being rests with Provenzano and our Majestic Queen who has guarded Siena, and will protect her forever^[2] Tradition holds that the lackluster faith of the Sienese led the Madonna to quit her protection, and thus to the ultimate subjugation of Siena by the emperor and his Florentine allies.

The Madonna di Provenzano terracotta was shattered, putatively this occurred by an either errant or impertinent shot by a Spanish soldier in the occupying army of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Supposedly the event caused a change on the soldier. He either died or repented from the event.

Finally about fifty years later, This neighborhood was considered the most morally insalubrious corners of town. Here an old prostitute from the neighborhood had the overnight healing of an ulcerous lesion,^[3] which prompted the commission of the church in 1594 from the architect Flaminio Del Turco.

The image became a large source of devotion, and soon the church relented and coopted the piety by erecting the church. Even the Medici family joined in patronage. The image was covered with a coating of silver in 1806, which has now been partially revealed.

In 1634 Pope Urban VIII named this a collegiate church with its own chapter of Canons.^[4]

Art and Architecture

The Mannerist design has an imposing white marble facade and an peaked dome at the center of the crossing of a Latin Cross layout. Construction began in 1595.

The first altar at the right depicts the Mass of San Cerbone (1630) by Rutilio Manetti. It describes a miracle that occurred when the holy bishop of Massa Marittima had apparitions of angels at a service he convoked for the pope. The canvas was commissioned by the bishop of Massa Marittima, Fabio Piccolomini.

The second altar on the right has a canvas depicting Saints Catherine of Siena and Catherine of Alexandria by Francesco Rustici as well as an Annunciation by Giovanni Domenico Manenti.

The first altar on the left has a St Catherine of Siena has a Vision of the Martyrdom of St Lawrence (1685) by Dionisio Montorselli. The canvas derives from the destroyed Sienese church of San Lorenzo. The second altar on the left has a 19th-century wooden crucifix.

The spandrels of the cupola were frescoed with the four patrons of Siena: Saints Ansano (1715, by Giuseppe Nicola Nasini), Savino, Crescenzio (1727, by Vincenzo Meucci), and Vittore (1726, by Gasparo Bidelli).^[5] Along the walls are monochrome canvases of the Dream of St John the Evangelist and the Mass of St Gregory Magno by Bernardino Mei and Deifebo Burbarini.

Along the nave are four large paintings depicting the Nativity of Mary, the Visitation, the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple, and the Coronation of the Virgin by Luigi Boschi and Giovanni Bruni.

In the transept are paintings depicting individuals who had lived in the same neighborhood St Bernardo Tolomei and the Blessed Savina Petrilli (2013), by Francesco Mori. The polychrome marble floor decoration below the cupola depicts the heraldic symbols of Grandukes of Tuscany Cosimo III de' Medici and Margherita Luisa d'Orléans, of the Florentine and Sienese states, and surrounded by the symbols of the nearby bishoprics of the ancient Republic of Siena: Grosseto, Sovana, Pienza, Montalcino, Massa Marittima and Chiusi.

The main altar shelters the terracotta icon of the Madonna di Provenzano in an architectural work (1617-1632) by Flaminio del Turco, the icon is surrounded by a glory of silver angels, and bronze statues of Saints Catherine and Bernardino sculpted by Giovanni Battista Querci. Some of the drapery on the altar has the symbols of Pope Alexander VII, last pope from Siena. In the Sacristy is a Compianto sul Cristo morto by Alessandro Casolani.

The apsis displays a flag captured by Sienese mercenary Paolo Amerighi from the Turks during the Battle of Vienna (1683). In the counterfacade is a flag from the Medici Fortress in Siena, given by the Grand-Duke Peter Leopold as a sign of demilitarization of the city.

References

1. La Madonna di Provenzano e le origini della sua chiesa: notizie storiche, by Francesco Bandini Piccolomini, (1895), page 88-89.
2. Siena! … io vedo i tuoi mali e non posso rimediarvi, perché Iddio è troppo adirato con te, Siena! … metti la Signoria nel crivello, sinnò andrai in bordello! Siena! … Manda le tue figliuole scalze a far penitenza in Provenzano, perché t’è vicina a venire addosso una gran piena che t’affogherà… Senesi! Il vostro benessere è riposto in Provenzano e l’alta Regina che ha guardata Siena, la guarderà in eterno.
3. Piccolomini, Page 66-67.
4. Collegiata Santa Maria di Provenzano Official site.
5. Piccolomini, page 128.

Coordinates: 43°19′15″N 11°19′57″E / 43.3209°N 11.3326°E